It never ceases to amaze me exactly how tightly folks will cling to the very same logic that blows up in their collective faces within about 6 months of it being deployed. Perhaps not entirely without some degree of amusement, you see it most often in the two worlds who could use a wake-up call the most. The entertainment world, and the political world. Between the two of them, they’ve managed to piece together a mamoth bad idea on a global scale–and one that could have been predicted to implode before it even got off the ground–in the form of a 3-strikes copyright policy (6 if you’re in the US). In keeping with the entertainment and political worlds’ tradition in this arena, my own 3 strikes system–3 epic failures anyone who used their brain could have seen coming.
Strike 1: File who?
I’ve mentioned it in passing before, but it gets its very own special mention here because, uh, this suddenly isn’t exactly a unique situation. Person happens to be the account holder, but may not necessarily be the most technical case on the block. They likely have the internet for email, Facebook, school and if they’re into that kinda thing and have a brain cell to spare, maybe a little Twitter, but that’s the extent of their internet usage. Not so much, perhaps, for that person’s roommates, but the laws as they stand now don’t really go for that kinda thing–you own the internets, therefore you get the nail. It results in, rather irritatingly if you’re the do your homework check your email go to bed type, needing to have the basic idea of file sharing explained to you before the industry tries a nd fails to sue the everloving pants off you. Win or lose, the New Zealand industry got what they wanted–regardless who did the sharing from where and when, the account holder they went after turned around and cancelled the account–thus probably creating a brand new issue for herself in the process where her education and the like’s concerned. But, hey, there’s no more of that nasty file sharing coming from that address now is there?
Strike 2: Not our material? You’re still guilty!
I enjoy laughing my ass off at the DMCA. Not so much at the folks what get slapped by it–I myself was indirectly and falsely slapped by it not all that long ago–but at a majority of the folks doing the slapping. And with the onset of the US’s 6 strikes policy, all it takes is someone sending you–or rather, your ISP–a DMCA notice (whether it’s an accurate one or not) for you to start heading down the path towards a very rocky internetting experience. The system they’re using to track, identify, process and send those notices for this 6 strikes system? Well, that would be the same system that became highly confused and decided that a mod for Guild Wars, a computer game, was actually a copy of at least one NBC TV show, none of which remotely resemble computer games or mods thereof. No info on whether or not this is court bound, but were this actually to fall under their 6 strikes system (and there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t) the accusation may be all that’s necessary for the ISP to be required to start taking action. For TV shows that weren’t being shared and may not have even existed. Go copyright!
Strike 3: Serving your country is not a defense.
Back to New Zealand for strike 3, and perhaps the more ridiculous of the 3. Where at least the other 2 the argument, if shakey and pretty much unproveable, hadn’t completely entered the realm of being entirely out to lunch, this one left the ball park–and, arguably, the country. Again we have a multiple roommate situation–this one, they’re all in the millitary. The guy who’s name the account’s in, and thus the one who ended up fielding the accusation, was in Afghanistan during the time the industry’s precious copyrights were being violated. The others in the house were apparently deployed in various locations around New Zealand at any given time, so figuring out who did what and when was more than a little bit of an issue. But far be it for the industry to let a little detail like that get in the way. So when the account holder was back from Afghanistan, he had that to deal with. How did he deal with it? Well, see, the thing about serving in a permanent war zone–so I’m told–is you don’t really have a lot of time for stupid when you get back, what with getting used to the fact you’re no longer serving in a permanent war zone and all that junk. So rather than very likely have to drag it out in court, all for events that couldn’t be proved and couldn’t be connected to him by more than an IP address tied to him just based on lack of proximity alone, he paid up. And somewhere, in a press release yet to be written, he’s about to be added to the “file sharers we caught” list. And there just went getting shot at in defense of democracy as a legal defense against copyright.
I’d love to be a fly on the wall in some of the rooms where conversations like these happen, if only because I can’t even guess at the mental and verbal backflipping that goes on to make anything remotely like this sound like something that doesn’t smell entirely of overdone crap on an underdone cracker. Somebody somewhere has to have spoken up and pointed out to these folks that maybe, just maybe, there’s a better option out there other than trying to kill a mosquito with a bazooka and hitting their own feet instead. But, hey, what do I know? I’m just one of those online folks the industry doesn’t wanna hear nothing about or from. Then again, maybe that’s their problem…